Chicago. Dallas. Minnesota. Winnipeg. Vancouver. Phoenix. Six straight losses have the Oilers on the verge of their longest ineffective run of the season; only a win over Nashville can halt the trend.

The Road To The Olympics

The schedule softens a little bit after the Olympic break, which is a good thing for the Oilers because they haven’t done a very good job of handling the rough stretches. Take the current six-game losing streak, comprised of a four-game Western road trip and then a home game against Vancouver. The only ‘easy’ matchup was a home game against the non-playoff Coyotes, which the Oilers lost on Friday.

Today the Oilers play the Predators. Tomorrow they play in Vancouver, which based on recent history is a game they’re all but certain to lose (the last time a tired Oilers team played Vancouver they lost 4-0 and were out-shot 40-19). Then there’s a Wednesday game against San Jose, then a four-game road swing out East starting with the Boston that ends with back-to-back games in New York.

A failure tonight gives the Oilers a very good shot at 10 consecutive losses.

Lottery Standings!

Rank

Team

Pace

1

Edmonton Oilers

56

2

Buffalo Sabres

57 (71)

3

Calgary Flames

68

4

Florida Panthers

76

5

New York Islanders

76

6

Winnipeg Jets

82

Ugh.

Buffalo is on a 57-point pace for the season, but have improved to a 71-point pace under Ted Nolan. Calgary is on track to finish a dozen points ahead of the Oilers. And that is the total number of teams set to finish less than 20 points in front of Edmonton.

Predictions!

Game Day Prediction: The losing has to end at some point; let’s call it 3-1 in favour of Edmonton.

Obvious Game Day Prediction: Even though Devan Dubnyk is not expected to start, Louie DeBrusk will find a way to use the nickname ‘Big Easy’ at least once on the broadcast.

Not-So-Obvious Game Day Prediction: After winning the hardest shot competition yesterday, Luke Gazdic gets an opportunity on the man advantage and scores his first power play goal of the season.

Jonathan Willis is a freelance writer.
He currently works for Oilers Nation, Sportsnet, the Edmonton Journal and Bleacher Report.
He's co-written three books and worked for myriad websites, including Grantland, ESPN, The Score, and Hockey Prospectus. He was previously the founder and managing editor of Copper & Blue.

I’ll say that there’s no one in hockey today that is still working in the game that has more seasons out of the playoffs than me. So I think I know a little bit about losing, if there’s ever a concern."

Impressed with the hockey sense of Marincin tonight, kid looks like a keeper. Put 20-30 pounds on him and a few years experience and he could be a solid NHL'er. The olympic experience will be great for him!

I can't believe a 21 year old rookie with less than 15 game in the league is the only defence man that under pressure in his own zone I don't cringe and my first thought isn't how's this turnover going to end up in the net!

Impressed with the hockey sense of Marincin tonight, kid looks like a keeper. Put 20-30 pounds on him and a few years experience and he could be a solid NHL'er. The olympic experience will be great for him!

Barry Trottz confirm's in a pre-game interview that the bad habit of Devan Dubnyk that bothered him the most, that being Dubnyk's penchant for spitting sunflower seeds onto the ice while watching from the bench, has been curtailed. Unfortunately Dubnyk's habit of conceded 5 goals a night not cured by watching Nashville's starting goalie

The management in this organization should be absolutely embarrassed with how this season has come along. Eakins is a utter failure, Bucky and Smith are jokes, Mac T has to this point done nothing to improve this team from the one a year ago, and then there is Kevin Lowe. it astonishes me this guy can walk around this city with his head held high.

PS. KEVIN LOWE...... The last time you did something good for this team, the Smurfs were a regular Saturday morning show.

No wonder Katz doesn't show his face in Edmonton. He sits back and watches this team fall deeper and deeper into despair.

When fans watch rebuilds start NOW and achieve more success than our team that is 8, sorry Darryl, 4 years into a rebuild, it is pretty disgusting.

This organization is just shameful and it pains me to feel this way because I really, really want to see a winning team.......

Not much to complain about tonight. Marincin with a bad pinch, Scrivens with a bad goal - that's about it.
I always hear how the 4th line can't win you games, but man they sure set the tone tonight. Maybe Jones' comment after last game had some effect?

A team that is scoring impaired; was playing their third road game in four days (did/does the oil have a similar scheduling knot this year?); third string goalie; weber was invisible - touch if the flu perhaps?

It's a win but it certainly does not break any trends or set any new achievement.

Ha, you must not be an Oilers fan.

A win like that certainly DOES break a trend and DOES set a new achievement, at least for this year.

Wow. This may be the only game before the Olympic break that the Oilers may win... depressing...

GDP: Oilers 3 Predators 4 (OT)

OGDP: The PP, PK and 5v5 play will be all subpar.

NSOGDP: In warmup, Hemsky will be pulled off the ice as the Oilers announce a trade. At the end of the first, Gagner will also be pulled off the ice as a result a trade. Finally, at the end of the second, Nick Schultz will be traded. The return? Two picks and two "role player" forwards who can finally fix our biggest problem-- that pesky fourth line.

If the reports of 6Rings requesting a "sabbatical" and being turned down are true, then the next honourable thing to do is to fall on his sword and resign. If he's in this for the best interests of the Oilers, then that would be the way to go. This guy can't possibly be unaware of the unrest directed towards him.

How he can go to the rink every day and hold his head up is beyond me.

DO THE RIGHT THING KEVIN LOWE. RESIGN. IF YOU TRULY HAVE THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE OILERS AT HEART, THERE IS ONLY ONE DECISION. BE A MAN AND MAKE THAT DECISION. YOU WILL GAIN FAR MORE RESPECT FOR DOING THAT THAN CONTINUING TO LEAD A ONCE PROUD ORGANIZATION AWAY FROM ANYTHING RESEMBLING MEDIOCRITY AND TOWARDS THE BOWELS OF INEPTITUDE.

Living in Calgary and being a oiler fan I've had to do a lot of defending of my team over the years but this year....I got nothin. flamers just start their rebuild and they are better than a team with 3 #1 picks? Like the rest of oil country I'm ready for the "bold moves". give us something.

Most definitely good. Don't listen to the haters! The game of hockey is an art form and it takes time to perfect it. In order to be consistent you have to build good habits and that can't just be turned on like a switch. There IS progress with these guys and there will be more going forward. Is this team flawed? Absolutely. Do they need to make some roster changes? Of course. But this team is not nearly as bad as some would have us believe. Same goes for the management and coaching staff. To believe that this management group is incompetent or tanking the team on purpose or whatever asinine crap the haters can dream up is ridiculous. This version of the oilers started with the hiring of MacT and then Eakins and they deserve a fair shake at bringing this team around. Enjoy the win boys cuz there's still a long road ahead. But steps are being taken in the right direction and I choose to believe that the best is yet to come.

I for one want to see Eakins get at least another year before declaring him a bust. Same reason a lot of people want to hold on to Yakupov. He's a rookie head coach, and he needs more experience, obviously.

And while some people believe Yakupov is not being put in a great position to succeed because of Eakins, the same could be said about MacT not putting Eakins in a position to succeed. The D corps is brutal. The goaltending was (and possibly still is) very poor. The forwards are too one-dimensional. But slowly the roster is being reshaped and I want to see what Eakins can do next year. He should have a better team, he'll have more experience, and the players will learn they can't just pass blame on to the HC.

The assistant coaches are another matter. They've been here for years. They had their fair shake at helping this team get better. But Eakins... I wanna see how he does with a full season under his belt.

Not much to complain about tonight. Marincin with a bad pinch, Scrivens with a bad goal - that's about it.
I always hear how the 4th line can't win you games, but man they sure set the tone tonight. Maybe Jones' comment after last game had some effect?

That’s the best d-zone coverage I've seen this year.

A wise man once told me to never critique a win but...

The 1st 15 minutes of the 3rd period looked like a fire drill. I counted no less than 10 simple plays to get the puck out of their zone that were totally flubbed. I agree with a previous poster that the 21 year old rookie was the most composed d-man we have is our own zone.

I hope Smitty breaks the PP record on home before the end of the year.

The Oilers have set the precedent for how not to rebuild. They don't have goaltending, no up and comers either. The d is 3-4 years away from being regular nhlers. They have no center depth and the ones they do have can't win faceoffs, except Gordon. They have talented wingers who mostly can't defend. The way this is going, this team will be terrible for another 5-6 years. A major overhaul is needed everywhere.

If there was ever a chance to fix the oilers back end - its next year.

This will be one of the biggest offseasons in oilers history, hopefully MacT is up for the challenge. Its unlikely any ufa will sign here - MacTs best bet is tsking salary off teams who can actually attract ufas- aka the perron trade.